


Where Lost Things Go

by ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)



Series: Tumblr Prompts [63]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, malec in edom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 08:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20079535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeLittleInfamy/pseuds/ByTheAngell
Summary: “This isn’t goodbye. After all, what was it you said... ‘It’s only Edom’, isn’t that right?” Jace says with a forced smile, and though his words waver with emotion he does his best to hold himself together as he drags Izzy back towards the portal Clary is barely holding open for them. The three of them are gone a moment later and Alec watches the portal close with finality.//Or, Edom never got destroyed and Alec stays behind with Magnus





	Where Lost Things Go

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: how about Edom never got destroyed by the Heavenly Fire and Alec chooses to stay in Edom with Magnus.
> 
> (Title taken from 'The Place Where Lost Things Go' from Mary Poppins returns)

They try their best, but it isn’t enough. There are too many demons, Lilith has too much strength, and Isabelle used too much of the Heavenly Fire in their journey to get to Magnus to have enough left to fight their way out. They have to leave - and Magnus has to stay behind to keep the rift closed. 

“We have to go. Now,” Clary says, clearly struggling to hold the portal open for their escape back out of Edom.

“Go ahead, I’ll be right behind you,” Alec says, giving the others the nod to go through the portal first while he turns back to Magnus. Lorenzo goes first, and then Simon, but Jace and Isabelle linger. 

“Alec…” Isabelle says slowly, and Alec gives his siblings a slow, sad smile. 

“You couldn’t just leave with the others, could you?” He sighs. “I guess I owe you a proper goodbye, I just- I thought it’d be easier if you found out when there wasn’t anything to be done about it.” There are tears in his eyes as Izzy flings her arms around him.

“I understand,” she says, the words choking in a sob pressed against his shirt. “I love you, Alec. We’ll find a way to get you back. Both of you. We got here once, we can do it again.” 

“Are you sure about this?” Jace asks carefully.   
  
“I’ve never been more sure about anything,” Alec says, turning from Izzy to wrap his arms around Jace. “Clary already put the rune on Magnus, so I’m paired with him instead.”   
  
For how long, Alec isn’t certain, but it’s a question that no one dares to bring up at this point.. The moment Jace realizes this was his plan all along and not just an impulsive choice he only nods in understanding. “This isn’t forever, Alec,” he swears. 

“Take care of him, will you?” Jace says to Magnus, who wears a look of stunned disbelief as the implications of the scene unfolding around him slowly dawn on him.

“Guys-” Clary says, voice strained. “Soon we’re all going to be staying with Magnus. I can’t hold this anymore.” 

“Go,” Alec urges, giving Jace one last clap on the back. “Tell mom and Max I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t goodbye. After all, what was it you said...  _ ‘It’s only Edom’ _ , isn’t that right?” Jace says with a forced smile, and though his words waver with emotion he does his best to hold himself together as he drags Izzy back towards the portal Clary is barely holding open for them. The three of them are gone a moment later and Alec watches the portal close with finality. 

He looks at the space it once occupied for a few more seconds before he feels Magnus’ hand on his shoulder. 

“Alexander, you should’ve gone with them.”    
  
Alec only shakes his head, turning to take Magnus in his arms. “My place is with you no matter where that is, and it always will be.” 

\---

Learning to control the magic he finds within his veins is easier when it’s Magnus’ magic. It isn’t foreign - it’s the same magic that reached out to him time and time again back home, the same magic that welcomed him as a trusted visitor through any ward Magnus created. It finds an easy, comfortable home within Alec, and reacts in kind. 

With time Alec’s stele becomes a decoration - a reminder of the life he left behind and nothing more. He takes it out and holds it from time to time, trying to draw a rune or activate his iratze, but never to any avail. Sometimes he simply holds it just to hold it, thinking of his family, or even Clary and Simon, wondering how they might be doing… praying to an Angel he’s never been more disconnected from that they’re still alive, wherever they are. 

Magnus walks in on him one of those days, catching Alec holding his stele with eyes closed against a silent trickle of stray tears. 

“Do you regret it,” Magnus asks quietly from the doorway,, unable to meet Alec’s eyes when Alec startles at the sudden sound. 

“No,” he says quickly, placing the stele back onto the ledge he picked it up from and walking over to Magnus. “Never. I miss them, of course I do. And I wish there had been another option, one where I could still be with them. Too. But I haven’t once wished I left you here alone.” 

“I’ll get us back,” Magnus promises. It’s one that Alec’s heard every day for nearly 200 days now.. He tried to stop keeping track but the numbers stay in the back of his mind no matter how hard he tries to forget about them. After all, they may be days in Edom, but they’re days with Magnus, and he means it when he says he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“I know you will,” Alec agrees, smiling as he leans in to a kiss that starts slow and reassuring, but quickly grows into something more. Magnus kisses another promise against Alec’s lips, a silent reverence to the man he loves, a reassurance that Magnus may be the King of Edom now but his allegiance is, and always will be, to Alec. 

It’s a devotion Alec never doubts. 

\--- 

It’s been a year since Alec arrived in Edom. He has a place next to Magnus now. Edom still stands but it’s under the rule of Asmodeus’ son - Alec’s husband. There’s no official ceremony to be had down here but it feels no less meaningful when Magnus declares Alec his husband. 

Alec’s presence in Edom is a matter of contention for the first few months he’s there. He can hardly leave the confines of the home Magnus inherited -  _ his home, now  _ \- without being attacked. An outsider, an interloper, angelic blood in a place Angels should never dare to tread. Though obviously hunting every demon within the confines of Edom itself would be a fool’s errand, Alec doesn’t hesitate to defend himself no matter how outnumbered.

The first time Alec comes back drenched in sweat and covered in ichor Magnus tries to step in, but Alec insists that he’s fine, that he can take care of himself. Alec plays the refusal off as not wanting his presence here to be a burden, but Magnus soon realizes that Alec needs that danger, the thrill of the hunt, the satisfaction of doing the thing he spent his entire life training to do. Alec knows Magnus doesn’t like to see him put himself in unnecessary danger but Magnus looks the other way. Any demon foolish enough to attack Alec meets the same bloody death. For a while it’s enough… until it isn’t. They day Alec goes out  _ looking _ for a fight is the day he ends up outnumber and overpowered; the day Alec nearly doesn’t make it back home is the day Magnus can no longer bring himself to look the other way. 

Magnus makes it clear from that point on that Alec isn’t to be touched. Most listen, some do not. After several daring demons make a few last attempts to be the one to take out the Nephilim brazen enough to come to  _ their home _ \- only to fail and suffer a fate by Magnus’ hands that makes even a battle-hardened Alec turn away from the sight of - the direct attempts on Alec’s life cease. Magnus takes things a step further, decreeing that Alec is to be treated as his equal. There are many more rumbles over that development but none dare to question their new King. Or, as it were, Kings. 

It’s strange, Alec thinks, to be able to freely wander Edom in any capacity, let alone one where he’s to be  _ obeyed _ , should it come to that. It never does. Rather than be in a position where they have to listen to a Nephilim the demons decide to avoid Alec at all costs instead which suits him just fine. 

They’re making progress. Alec can use his stele again, thanks to some magical tempering on Magnus’ part, a fusion of the pure angelic essence within Alec’s blood with the tool so that it can hold its own against the dampening effect of Edom’s overwhelming demonic energy. They learn to channel the magic that Magnus shares with Alec as one so that rather than weakening the effect when they both call upon it at once it actually strengthens. 

They’re making progress, more every day, and while Alec doesn’t lose hope that they can find a way to defeat Lilith for good, seal the rift and find a way back home, he finds that with every passing day by Magnus’ side he feels more content than the one before. Life in Edom is far from ideal, but there’s something to be said about the lack of societal pressures, familial expectations, and the general weight of the world which Alec Lightwood, Head of the New York Institute, live under on a daily basis before. 

This existence should be a punishment, a prison, but instead it’s almost freeing. The guilt Alec experiences for even humoring the idea, let alone relishing in his time trapped here with Magnus, shuts him down for days at a time when it hits. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep, he won’t even speak to Magnus, and though Alec can see the pain it causes Magnus to give him space that’s exactly what he does. They both pretend not to notice when Magnus comes back smelling like ichor and death on those days or the strangled sobs that come from one - or both - them that get caught echoing down otherwise silent halls. 

\---

On day 413 (because Alec never can stop counting), Magnus perfects opening portals within Edom. On day 415 Alec watches Magnus deliver Lilith to the same fate he condemned Asmodeus to. On day 417, without Lilith’s magic constantly battling against his own every time Magnus reaches out to connect to the demonic realm around him, he’s able to focus enough power to permanently close the rift, and keep it closed besides the smallest tear for a portal back to New York, which he’ll have just enough energy to seal shut behind them if they move fast enough during the transport. 

Alec is surprised at the mixed emotions day 418, what will be his final day in Edom if all goes according to plan, brings him. 

“Ready?” Magnus sounds anxious, but there’s a smile on his face as he makes the final preparations. 

Alec knows he should nod and agree, but instead the words leaving his mouth are: “Would it really be so bad to just stay here?” 

“...why would you say that?” Magnus asks slowly, and Alec surprises himself by speaking exactly what’s on his mind. 

“You know how much things changed in the three months after we met.... It’s been over a year. I know the plan was always to get back home, back to our lives, but… what if we don’t have a life to return to?” Alec knows, realistically, he can’t simply waltz back in and take over the Institute again. He’s not positive he’ll even be welcomed back among the Nephilim after the decision he made to stay in Edom. And Jace, Izzy, and the others… what if they never found a way to get them back because they didn’t want to?

Or worse, what if they  _ do _ want him to step right back into his old life, when he isn’t sure that’s what he wants after so much time away. 

“Then we go somewhere new, and do something different. Just because we’re getting out of Edom doesn’t mean we have to stay in New York. If you want to travel the world, say the word and it’s done. It’s going to take some adjustment, but we’ll figure it out together. Edom was never meant to be either of our homes.” Magnus says the last sentence with contempt. 

It’s reassuring to hear the option out loud. The option for change, for growth, for something different. His life with Magnus prior to Edom was a whirlwind, and their time here far from ideal for growing a healthy relationship. It’s enough to hear from Magnus that he has no expectations of Alec once they’re back except that they’ll figure things out together. 

The promise of facing their uncertain futures together is enough to ease Alec’s nerves as he reaches out to take Magnus’ outstretched hands.

“Alright,” he agrees finally. “Let’s go home.” 

**Author's Note:**

> ( Find me on [Tumblr](http://bytheangell.tumblr.com) and also on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/By_The_Angell)! <3 )


End file.
